February 8, 2007

Get Scooter

This is interesting. It looks like Scooter Libby's defense team used the cross-examination of Tim Russert to try to argue that Russert was out to get Libby. From the WaPo:

A defense attorney for I. Lewis "Scooter" Libby this afternoon suggested that NBC News Washington Bureau chief Tim Russert had a personal animosity for the vice president's former chief of staff and was elated when Libby was indicted in 2005.
Testifying for a second day at Libby's perjury trial, Russert said he took no joy in Libby's fate and was excited only about a major news story regarding anticipated indictments in the CIA leak case in October 2005. . . .
But Russert sounded giddy in an audiotape played in court this afternoon of his on-air interview with radio personality Don Imus
on the morning of Oct. 28, when charges were expected against Libby.
"It was like Christmas Eve here last night," Russert chortled, as he told Imus about the much-anticipated results of a CIA leak investigation that Special Counsel Patrick J. Fitzgerald was expected to announce later that afternoon. "Santa Claus is coming tomorrow. Surprises! What's going to be under the tree?"

I admit that it's kind of funny seeing the inanities a media heavyweight like Russert utters on Don Imus's show being used against him in a court of law. But I think they just testify to the towel-snapping nature of so much of our political journalism, not to any deep-seated anti-Scooter animus on Russert's part.

One thing, though, that is becoming clear: Scooter Libby's got a bit of a persecution complex. First he calls Russert to complain that Chris Matthews is out to get him. And now his lawyers are saying Russert was out to get Scooter, too. Can you imagine what Libby thinks of Fitzgerald?